Informed Reader

Updated July 14, 2007 12:01 a.m. ET

GOVERNMENT Cities Pay High Price to Woo Businesses BUSINESSWEEK -- JULY 23

States and cities are offering businesses even richer incentives to set up shop locally. BusinessWeek reports on how a small North Carolina town's pursuit of Google Inc. became a case study in the risks and opportunities of these increasingly elaborate bidding wars.

Lenoir, N.C., a town of 17,000 located in the foothills of the state's Blue Ridge Mountains, might seem like an unusual match for the Silicon Valley tech giant. But the area's...